A balance sheet is one type of financial statement that may be generated for a business. Some regulatory authorities require that a business generate a balance at least once per year. The regulatory authorities may also require that the balance sheet have a specific structure and/or specific accounts, sometimes referred to as balance sheet accounts. Examples of balance sheet accounts include, but are not limited to assets, liabilities, depreciation, etc. FIG. 1A is a schematic representation of a structure for a simple balance sheet 10. Some regulatory authorities may also assign a number and/or code to one or more of the required balance sheet accounts.
In a cost of sales method of accounting, direct costs attributed to the production of goods and/or services sold by a business are assigned to one or more balance sheet accounts. For example, direct costs associated with materials that have begun transformation to finished goods are assigned to a work in process (WIP) account 12 (FIG. 1A), which may be part of inventories in the assets portion of the balance sheet. Examples of goods and/or services that may be sold by a business include, but are not limited to, washing machines, cars and buildings. Notably, the goods and/or services that are sold by a business are sometimes referred to as cost objects. Manufacturing orders, sales orders, service orders and/or projects relating to goods and/or services are also sometimes referred to as cost objects.
Some businesses find that actual costs attributed to the production of goods and/or services may differ from planned costs for production of such goods and/or services. The difference between an actual cost and a planned cost is sometimes referred to as a variance.
Some businesses perform cost analysis to identify and/or help identify reason(s) for variances and implement changes to try to address such variances. For example, some businesses may make changes in regard to its choice of suppliers and/or processes used within the business. In some situations, the business may decide to change the selling price of the goods and/or services.
Various products are available to assist businesses in regard to accounting and/or cost analysis. Examples of such products include SAP-BW, and SAP-ERP component CO-PC, produced by SAP AG.
Notwithstanding the availability of such products, additional methods, apparatus, systems, computer program products and/or mediums to further assist in accounting and/or financial analysis are desired.